Rishikesh

**pics added 5/11, post complete**

When my wife and I were in Washington, D.C. probably 7 years ago or so, we were at The Mall (the National Mall, not a shopping center), and when we were walking to the Washington Monument or the Capitol, they really never seemed to get any closer.  This kind of optical delusion in distance is the same thing that was happening to me on the Laxman Jhula bridge.  It seemed to be maybe a quarter mile up, but ended up being much farther, for one thing, and not the Laxman Jhula bridge for another thing.

I walked all the way along the ghats only to realize once I did arrive near the bridge that the ghats stopped, and I would have to swim upstream a few hundred yards to get on the other side.  I turned around and headed back toward where I started and began looking for a way to get up to a larger street that might take me to the bridge.  I found one within a few minutes, and passed several beggars and begging sadhus.  I found the bridge and crossed it, thinking that I was now in Laxman Jhula.  I was looking for a place that I had heard about, the Hotel Ishan, and that should be around 200-400rs a night (4-8 dollars).  This would be perfect as I could hang out here for a bit where it’s more peaceful and to do so cheaply.

I go up and down, up and down the streets.  Looking for a sign.  Nothing.  I start asking people for the hotel, and no one knows it or they don’t understand me.  I keep walking the various streets and then someone tells me this is not Laxman Jhula, that it’s up the way.  Ohhh…

So, off I go in that direction, and after what I determined to be between 6 and 7 and a half miles with my full pack and a couple hours later, having crossed another bridge back to the original side, I find the hotel.  They don’t have rooms for that price, but they do have one at 800, so I ask to take a look.  It is not air-conditioned.  Rishikesh is really still at low elevation and suffers the same heat as much of the plains.  The difference is a breeze, and the nights tend to be a bit cooler.  It was slated to be 109 here again today.

I ask what the cheapest air-con room is, and he shows me that one.  It doesn’t have a room number.  The key just says “New Room.”  I go in, and it is the biggest room I’ve stayed in so far, with a large window looking out on the Ganges and the start of the Himalayan foothills.  The AC works well and is relatively silent by Indian standards.  It has a couch, two chairs, two twin beds pushed together for king, a TV (doesn’t work), and a small desk area.  It also has a small entry way, and the bathroom which reeks is on the other side of it.

I debate in my head for a few minutes and take a look at the other room again.  The main reason I’m even debating is because I need to come to grips with some more foiled expectations, and determine what I think is the best move.  I had anticipated significantly cooler temps, and though the guy at the travel booth ended up telling me the truth about the weather, I thought he was mistaken.  I also anticipated significantly cheaper rent, and this was the most expensive room so far.  So, I had to come to grips with my new situation, because what I had planned for (and the reasons I had planned that way) were no longer applicable.

As soon as I realized that I had to throw out my old expectations, it was an easy choice.  Besides, the other room had a spider the size of a silver dollar that had a big web over the only sink.  24 dollars a night will not break the budget, and I have extra set aside just in case anyway.  I take the AC room, and enter my private rehabilitation area where I am relaxing in virtually total privacy, though it is as loud here with the honking and so on, as many other places, although the other places don’t have the near constant chanting on a loudspeaker from below my room, and ecstatic singing/shouting.  I’m sure there are quiet places in Rishikesh, but this surely isn’t it.  It is, however, mine, and there is a curtain separating the bedroom area from the entry alcove which makes me feel even more “protected.”  There is a restaurant downstairs and they have various foods (Indian, Israeli, Italian, Russian, British, and American).  The quality is reasonable, though the prices are some of the highest I’ve paid, but they have wi-fi (that usually works), and the signal bleeds up and over into my room.

I got a shower, got some of my stuff unpacked and had a nap to offset the bus ride.  The diarrhea was more persistent, but not much cramping.  I continue to take my probiotics only and I think they are working as I’m sure I would have been down with something by now.  It seems to be much better today than yesterday.  I think the AC is helping as strange as it may sound.

Due to the necessary schedule changes in getting out of Varanasi, and the stern warnings about Rajasthan in this heat from both the helpful guy on the plane and the people at the travel booth, I have made some additional changes in the trains, and am doing an abbreviated Rajasthan itinerary.  As providence would have it, the trains I needed for connections had one AC seat that was illogically and unexplainably open in an otherwise past capacity and into waitlisted train.

I will be here for 4 more days, and then head back to Delhi on an overnight AC train.  I will land in the infamous Old Delhi station that I cut my teeth on, and will leave from there to Jaisalmer which is a desert town near the Pakistani border on the Thar Desert.  I will be there for two days only, and head from there to Jodhpur via overnight AC train for only the daytime before my next AC night train leave s Jodhpur for Mumbai or as the locals still call it “Bombay.”  I will either have a single day (like Jodhpur) or two days and one night in Mumbai (depending on which train I get confirmed) before heading to Goa for a few days and then on to Kerala for 4 or 5 days.  The train from Kerala to Katpadi (nearest rail town to Tiruvanammalai) is the only one that I will probably be in Sleeper class on for the duration of the trip.  I have booked an AC leg also as backup, but the waitlist is in the 40’s and won’t likely confirm.

From Tiru I will head to Chennai, and from Chennai another domestic Indian flight back to Delhi and then back to the good ol’ US of A.  In many ways, I can’t wait, but I also want to take everything I can get from this Journey, and I still have most of 4 weeks to go.

This time of recuperation and restoration in my private little room, is much needed and is helpful for me to do the most prudent of planning for the rest of the itinerary.  The first two weeks have largely been unplanned at all, not knowing at all where I will stay or how I will get somewhere.  Lack of planning has it’s place, and I think it’s served its purpose.  I’m much more willing to listen to that inside guidance, and I have had to be flexible and resilient.  I think I can plan again without getting too attached to the results.  I think I’ve learned what I needed to so far, and I’m ready to enjoy the rest of the trip a bit more.

This post brings us to my current situation, location, position, and outlook.  Changes will be reported here :)